Mind Power Read online

  The whole thing was a sham.

  The representative from the cure programme was a woman with a silk scarf round her neck tied in an ostentatious bow. She kept looking down at her notes as she spoke to the others sat around the table. “The truth of the matter is that the cure programme works,” she said. “We have cured more than five thousand teenagers to date, all of whom are leading lives as normal citizens.”

  One of the MPs, a stout woman who wasn’t afraid to allow streaks of grey to grow through what was left of her brown hair, tapped her pen increasingly loudly on the table. “If it worked, we wouldn’t all be sitting here,” she said. “It’s not the children you’ve cured that are the issue, it’s the ones you haven’t.”

  “Then the cure programme needs to be given more resources,” said the ostentatious bow woman. “We can carry out fresh screenings and cure any of the stragglers.”

  A male MP, with a full beard and a tweed jacket, raised his eyebrows at that. “I don’t think it is the stragglers who are a problem,” he said. “From what I understand from the news reports, this is a deliberate attempt to use perceivers to pry into people’s private thoughts. Did you see the telly last night? They’re being trained by the army! I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a government agency behind this.”

  The stout MP laughed. “It’s always a conspiracy with you, isn’t it?”

  “Just because I’m paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me,” he said with a grin.

  Michael perceived that the two MPs, despite being on the opposite side of the political spectrum, had a long history of being in Parliament and had a mutual respect for each other, even though they disagreed on a political level. It was a very odd thing to experience: two people who were both friends and enemies at the same time.

  “The cure programme has worked to calm public disquiet in the past,” the ostentatious bow woman said. “It can work again in the future. It’s a question of making the commitment.”

  Michael’s anger boiled over at that point and spilled from his mouth. “You can’t cure everyone,” he said. “Especially not after Pankhurst brought in Perceivers’ Law. People have the right to live as they are.”

  The ostentatious bow woman shook her head. “We all know Pankhurst is likely to be voted out at the next election—”

  The stout MP tutted loudly. “I think you underestimate John Pankhurst. People didn’t think he’d be re-elected last time and they were wrong.”

  “I don’t think people will make that mistake twice,” said the ostentatious bow woman. “Especially not now that it’s been revealed perceivers were working for the army. No one’s going to believe Pankhurst didn’t know about that. What I’m saying is, if we cure them, the problem goes away.”

  “The problem,” said Michael, trying – and failing – to remain calm, “is not the perceivers, it’s the people who don’t understand them. If people realised that perceivers are ordinary people, then they wouldn’t hate them.”

  “That’s rather naive if you don’t mind me saying so,” said the stout MP.

  Michael did mind. He wanted to tell her that he was a perceiver, that he wasn’t evil. But he had promised the Prime Minister and so he kept his mouth shut.

  “The fact is,” the MP continued. “They could be anywhere. They could be prying into the minds of our most important business people, they could be eavesdropping on the thoughts of our police and intelligence services. There could even be a perceiver in this room right now looking into our heads and we wouldn’t know about it.”

  Michael felt his cheeks go red as he realised that was exactly what he had been doing. He reached for the glass of water on the table in front of him in the hope that taking a sip would hide his embarrassment.

  But it was the ringing of the stout MP’s phone that provided the distraction.

  “Sorry,” she said, as she pulled her phone from her jacket pocket and answered. “Hello? I’m in a meeting … Oh. Oh, right. Yeah, thanks.”

  She got up from her seat and grabbed her papers.

  “What’s wrong?” said the bearded man.

  “The Prime Minister’s making a statement in the House,” she said.

  “Is it about the fiscal deficit again?” said the bearded man.

  “It’s about perceivers,” said the stout MP.

  Pauline was standing by the filing cabinets at the back of her office when Michael found her. She had the top drawer open of one of them and a stack of files piled up on top of it.

  Michael barely noticed the other woman working at her desk when he rushed in.

  Pauline turned. “Michael!”

  “You have to come,” he said. “The Prime Minister’s making a speech.”

  “Isn’t that what Prime Ministers do?” she said.

  “About perceivers!” said Michael. “The Prime Minister is making a speech about perceivers.”

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her from her filing.

  He led her down the corridor, but after a few moments it was obvious that she knew the way better than him and he ended up being the one chasing her to the debating chamber.

  Not being MPs, they couldn’t go on the floor of the House, but they could go into the public gallery. A man looking like an extra from a period drama, in black frock coat, white bib shirt and white bow tie – as per the Houses of Parliament tradition – glanced at their passes, made sure they had turned off their mobile phones and led them to a row of seats behind security glass high up along one side of the chamber.

  Down below, Members of Parliament were still streaming in. So many of them, that they had nowhere left to sit and were standing in a cluster by the door.

  The Prime Minister stood at the lectern, to jeers of approval from his party. He looked, as he always did in public, smart in his suit with his hair brushed neatly from his face. He had chosen a more sober tie for the occasion, a dark purple with only bright yellow polka dots to express his individuality.

  “The last few days have revealed news about perceivers that many have found shocking,” said Pankhurst, looking up to glance at the MPs in front of him. “These reports have spoken of perceivers working with the police, with the justice system and in other ways in society. I have to tell the House that these news reports have been, by and large, true.”

  Jeers rose from many of the seated and standing MPs. This time they were jeers of disapproval and came from members of parties other than his own.

  “Many people found the development of perceivers in this country something to be feared,” he continued. “I say they are something to be celebrated. For centuries, people have tried to discover who is guilty of a crime and who is innocent. A guilty man may say with a straight face that he did not commit the crime and, until now, we had to rely on painstakingly gathered pieces of evidence to ascertain whether he was telling the truth or not. With perceivers, we can know for certain. No more do we have to worry that an innocent man has been sent to jail or a guilty man has been allowed to walk free.”

  The murmurs of approval from Pankhurst’s party were subdued and Michael perceived that even they were uncertain about whether they could support his view.

  “There has been a lot of talk in the media about breaching human rights,” Pankhurst continued. “I remember a time when such voices of dissent were raised on the subject of CCTV cameras. People felt those, too, were invading their privacy. Now we take CCTV for granted and, every day, criminals are caught on video and brought to justice. It is my belief that, in time, people will appreciate the use of perceivers in the same way.”

  Pankhurst turned the page of his prepared statement. The MPs remained unusually quiet. “Which is why the use of perceivers so far has been on a small scale. It has been a pilot project which I have now asked to be suspended while an assessment is made on how effective it has been and how we can use perceivers going forward. So it is my directive that all work with perceivers in public life be stopped as of this moment.”

  Pauline turned
to Michael. “Does this mean I’m out of a job?”

  He shrugged.

  Below them, the opposition MPs were getting restless. One shouted, “Disgraceful!” Another responded, “Resign!”

  The Prime Minister ignored them and continued with his prepared statement. “But I have to tell the House that Britain is not alone in developing perceivers. I know the world believes that perceivers were only born here, but I have to tell you that other countries have secretly been plotting to use perceivers for their own ends. I am unable to go into details for security reasons, but let me say that if we abandon the perceiver programme, we allow other countries to exploit perceivers, possibly to our detriment. Which is why I authorised the army to train some of our strongest and most capable perceivers to work in the national interest. I make no apology for that, as safeguarding the country’s security is one of the priorities of this government.”

  Pauline transmitted her thoughts to Michael, So that’s it, everyone knows about us.

  Looks that way, Michael replied.

  What now?

  He shrugged again.

  They continued to listen to the Prime Minister speak until the leader of the opposition stood up to ask questions and it was clear nothing more of substance was going to be said.

  Michael and Pauline made their way out of the public gallery and turned their phones back on.

  Pauline’s was the first to bleep. Her already deflated mood deflated another notch. She sighed.

  “What?” said Michael.

  “It’s from the woman in my office.” She turned the screen of the phone for Michael to see the text message. ‘Come and speak to me ASAP,’ it read.

  “Looks like I’m out of a job,” Pauline explained.

  Michael’s phone bleeped. He had two missed calls and a text.

  “Are you out of a job too?” said Pauline.

  “If I gave up university just to get sacked, I’m going to be …”

  He read the text. It wasn’t about work. It wasn’t from anyone in Parliament.

  ‘Can you call me as soon as you get this?’ it read, and was signed off, ‘Tony Patterson’.

  Pauline looked over his shoulder. “Who’s Tony Patterson?”

  “Inspector Patterson,” Michael clarified.

  “The policeman you used to work with? What does he want?”

  “I suppose I better ring him and find out.”

  Eleven

  The police station at Paddington was a sprawling block of a building which had all the architectural flare of someone who valued the concept of cheap above the concept of impressive.

  Inside was not much better, although its tired decor and cheap plastic seats screwed to the wall were disguised by a number of waiting members of the public. Either waiting around for a relative to be released on bail or to see a police officer about their nuisance neighbour. At least, that’s what Michael gleaned from them in the moments before he closed his perception down.

  He told the sergeant behind the high barrier of the front desk that he was there to see Inspector Patterson. As soon as he had finished filling out his security pass, Patterson appeared to take him out of the public area and into the main part of the police station.

  In the quiet of the corridor, Patterson appeared less stressed than when Michael had last seen him. He still wore a suit that looked like it had been stored in a bundle in the corner of a room rather than hung up in a wardrobe, and his wiry hair still defied any attempt to lay neatly on the top of his head, but there was an assuredness and a confidence about him that Michael hadn’t perceived before. It suited him. In fact, despite the two years that had passed since they had last seen each other, Patterson looked no older.

  “Thanks for coming,” said Patterson, as he led Michael down the corridor of featureless white.

  “No problem,” said Michael.

  “The woman said she needed to see someone in charge of perceivers. I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “Who is she?”

  “She’s Russian, but her English is pretty good. Her name is Katya, or so she says,” said Patterson. “She arrived on a tourist visa and went straight to a police station asking for asylum, but she refused to say more until she talked to someone in charge of perceivers. That’s when I got the call.”

  “Isn’t your new job supposed to be solving murder and serious crime?” said Michael.

  “That ‘new’ job that I’ve been doing for two years? Yeah, it is, but some people in the Met still know me as the perceiver cop. I thought the time that we worked together was secret, but it’s not easy to keep a secret in an organisation full of detectives.”

  At the end of the corridor, they entered into a stairwell. A sign on the wall helpfully revealed that the stairs led down to the cells.

  “You locked her up?” said Michael.

  “We didn’t have anywhere else to put her,” said Patterson. “If she went off to an asylum detention centre, I wouldn’t have any jurisdiction. Not as if I can hang on to her for much longer here, we’re a bit short of space for actual criminals.”

  Another desk sergeant waited for them at the bottom of the stairs. This one had no public riffraff to deal with and the desk he stood behind was actual desk height. Both Michael and Patterson signed in and were led to a door constructed of iron bars which allowed them to see down to the row of cell doors. Lifting a set of keys from a ring attached to his belt, the sergeant unlocked the gate then escorted them past two cell doors before stopping at a third. After peering through the spy hole and seeing nothing untoward, he unlocked the door.

  It released the stale body odour smell of someone who had not been able to wash for several days. Michael tried not to let the unpleasantness of it show as the young woman inside stirred from where she had been lying on the narrow cell bed. She was white to the point of being pale while the colours of the clothes that she wore in layers of dress, jumper and cardigan had begun to merge into the same grubby brown.

  As she sat up and pulled the police-issue blanket over her knees, Michael saw the one salient detail which Patterson had neglected to mention: she was pregnant.

  Very pregnant. She hitched up the blanket even further to cover the bump, but it still showed.

  “Katya,” said Patterson. “This is the person I told you about.”

  She stared with wide eyes at Michael. For a moment, he thought he felt her touch his mind. But that suspicion was only fleeting and, as he perceived her, he detected only a norm. A very frightened, uncertain and troubled norm.

  “Hello, I’m Michael,” he said.

  “You’re a perceiver,” she said with a heavy Russian accent. “Aren’t you?”

  Michael shot a glance back to Patterson, but the policeman shook his head and Michael perceived that it was not a piece of information he had told her. “Why do you say that?” he asked her.

  “I’ve waited so long,” she said.

  She burst into tears. Literally. Her fear, uncertainty and troubles spilled from her eyes. Sobs took over her whole body until she shook.

  Michael felt uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure what to do. He turned to Patterson, but he perceived the man was just as clueless.

  He turned back to Katya. Her face was already wet with tears. They dripped from her chin and rained onto her jumper. He thought about putting a comforting arm around her shoulders, but then he thought it might be inappropriate and he continued to stand helpless in front of her.

  “Do you have a hanky?” Michael asked Patterson.

  Patterson fumbled in his jacket pockets. He checked his inside pocket. He delved both hands into his trouser pockets and retrieved nothing.

  The woman – who was almost still a girl, really – kept crying.

  Michael pulled the sleeve of his shirt down over his hand and stepped forward. “Don’t cry, please,” he said. It wasn’t very comforting, but he wasn’t sure what else to say. “Sorry I haven’t got a hanky.”

  When Michael got close enough and Katya didn�
��t pull away from him, he reached over and dabbed the cuff of his shirt onto her damp face. The softness of his touch calmed her sobs until only tears fell. It was awkward to reach standing in front of her, so he sat beside her on the bed to wipe the remainder of her tears. By the time she had stopped crying, the end of his shirt sleeve was damp.

  “Waited so long for what?”

  Katya looked up at Patterson as if reluctant to speak in front of him.

  “I’ll wait in the corridor,” said Patterson. “If you need me, I’ll be right outside the door.” He stepped out of the cell and closed the door behind him. It bounced off the doorframe and remained open a crack without the lock sealing it in place.

  Katya looked up at Michael, her eyes red with crying. “Can you help me?”

  “Help you with what?”

  “Can’t you perceive it from me?” she said.

  “If I went deep into your mind I could,” said Michael. “But it’s easier if you tell me.”

  She sniffed and wiped her nose on her own sleeve. “They made me pregnant,” she said.

  “Who’s they?”

  “The people who want to make perceivers in Russia. I thought it was to make babies for women who couldn’t have babies. There are many people like that, it’s very sad for them. I needed the money and having a baby is a better job than cleaning toilets, so I agreed to do it. But that was before …”

  “Before what?” said Michael.

  “Before I overheard them talking. The doctor, his Russian was not that good, so he talked in English. They thought I didn’t understand them, but my father was a diplomat and he wanted me to learn English so I could work abroad some day, like him. That’s when I heard them say they were breeding perceivers.”

  Michael looked down at her swollen belly where she carried her baby.

  “I thought I was having a baby for a childless couple who wanted desperately to have a family. I imagined how they would love him and bring him up to have a happy life,” she continued. “But all they wanted was for me to breed a mind-reading soldier. They lied to me.”